Market feedback, investment constraints, and managerial behavior

This paper examines the joint role of market feedback and investment constraints on managerial behavior. Using a sample of UK fixed price initial public offerings, we show that underperformance of share returns at the IPO significantly affects managerial investment decisions in the period after the offering. Firms with better investment opportunities and proportionately lower fixed (higher intangible) assets are more sensitive to negative market feedback. Over the longer term, the more responsive firms perform significantly better than their non-responsive counterparts. The findings contribute to the debate on the informational advantage of managers over investors and present strong evidence that the market, on aggregate, can provide a superior assessment of a firm's opportunities. Managers who are able to respond to negative market feedback can significantly improve their firm's future prospects

Decoherence of a solid-state qubit by different noise correlation spectra

The interaction between solid-state qubits and their environmental degrees of freedom produces non-unitary effects like decoherence and dissipation. Uncontrolled decoherence is one of the main obstacles that must be overcome in quantum information processing. We study the dynamically decay of coherences in a solid-state qubit by means of the use of a master equation. We analyse the effects induced by thermal Ohmic environments and low-frequency 1/f noise. We focus on the effect of longitudinal and transversal noise on the superconducting qubit's dynamics. Our results can be used to design experimental future setups when manipulating superconducting qubits.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures. Version to appear in Physics Letters A. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0809.4716 by other author

Changes in Knowledge of HPV, Cervical Cancer, PAP Smears, and Attitudes Towards HPV vaccination from a Community-Based Intervention for Latinas

Purpose/Background: Latinas are 20% less likely to receive the HPV vaccine and, in Idaho, are 35% more likely to die of cervical cancer than non-Latinas -16.2/100,000 in Latinas vs. 7.6/100,000 non-Latinas-. Research indicates that this disparity is due to low health literacy, and barriers of language, culture, and poverty. This project’s purpose was to assess the efficacy of a community-based intervention designed to increase rural Idaho Latina health literacy about cervical cancer prevention and detection, about the Women\u27s Health Check program, and to assess participant attitudes towards child HPV vaccination. Materials & Methods: Investigators trained six bilingual Latinas from rural SE Idaho as promotoras. Project investigators and promotoras created videos in English and in Spanish providing information about cervical cancer prevention, detection, treatment, the HPV vaccine, and the Women\u27s Health Check Program. The promotoras identified Latina participants (n=44) from their communities, delivered educational materials in participant homes and at schools, and administered pre and post video surveys to assess changes in knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of cervical cancer, the Pap test, and the HPV vaccine. Participants, who were all Latinas, chose either English or Spanish language materials. Results: 50% chose English and 50% chose Spanish language materials.100% of intervention completers (n=44, 18-70+ years), showed increases in knowledge of cervical cancer, the Pap Test, HPV vaccine and the Women\u27s Health Check Program. Pre-intervention, 25% did not know that there was a vaccine for HPV, 18% had not heard of cervical cancer, and 44% had not heard about the Women\u27s Health Check Program. Post intervention knowledge for these items was a 100%. With regard to intention to vaccinate for HPV, “How likely are you to get your child the HPV vaccine?” -- a 7 point LIKERT scale question with lower numbers reflecting more positive intention ---there was a significant mean difference in the total sample at pre (M = 2.07, SD = 1.44) and post (M = 1.23, SD = 0.53), F (1, 41) = 14.39, p \u3c .001. Language choice (proxy for acculturation) was not a significant factor in intent to vaccinate F(1, 41) = 0.30, p = .588. Although not statistically significant, Spanish speakers showed a larger change in intention to vaccinate with mean scores of 2.14 to 1.18 compared to English speakers 2.00 to 1.41. Discussion/Conclusion: All participants demonstrated increases in knowledge and intention to vaccinate. Results indicate that there was a significant movement in the report of increased intention to vaccinate children for HPV. The project shows that Latinas in rural SE Idaho lack knowledge of cervical cancer prevention and detection including the role of the HPV vaccine in the prevention of cervical and other associated cancers. Language choice indicates continued need for bilingual health education. Data shows that a community-based, bilingual intervention is effective in this community

The Small Size of the Small Scale Market: The Early-Stage Labor Market for Highly Skilled Nanotechnology Workers

We examine the labor market for the highly trained in nanotechnology and the response of universities toward providing training. We draw comparisons with the labor market and university response in bioinformatics. The demand analysis is based on position announcements in Science in 2002 compared to 2005. We also analyze online position announcements in late 2005 and early 2006. Our analysis leads us to conclude that at the present time the market is small and growing for positions in academe and at FFRDC's, small and stable for positions at firms. Our analysis of training leads to the conclusion that the pipeline is being filled primarily through a principal investigator approach, where a student is attached to one faculty member's lab, rather than to a formal program. The fundamental difference between nanotechnology and bioinformatics in this respect may be due to differences in the opportunities available to universities and faculty. Working Paper 07-0

Macroscopic tunneling, decoherence and noise-induced activation

We study the effects of the environment at zero temperature on tunneling in an open system described by a static double-well potential. We show that the evolution of the system in an initial Schrodinger cat state, can be summarized in terms of three main physical phenomena, namely decoherence, quantum tunneling and noise-induced activation. Using large-scale numerical simulations, we obtain a detailed picture of the main stages of the evolution and of the relevant dynamical processesComment: Contribution to the Proceedings of DICE'0

Charge confinement and Klein tunneling from doping graphene

In the present work, we investigate how structural defects in graphene can change its transport properties. In particular, we show that breaking of the sublattice symmetry in a graphene monolayer overcomes the Klein effect, leading to confined states of massless Dirac fermions. Experimentally, this corresponds to chemical bonding of foreign atoms to carbon atoms, which attach themselves to preferential positions on one of the two sublattices. In addition, we consider the scattering off a tensor barrier, which describes the rotation of the honeycomb cells of a given region around an axis perpendicular to the graphene layer. We demonstrate that in this case the intervalley mixing between the Dirac points emerges, and that Klein tunneling occurs.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure